Posted
by
michaelon Friday October 01, 2004 @11:42AM
from the long-arm dept.

spellraiser writes "Iceland's Internet traffic saw a substantial decrease this week as police raided the homes of 12 individuals suspected of sharing massive amounts of copyrighted material over a private, local DC++ hub that was infiltrated by SMAIS, the Association of film right holders in Iceland. The people who were raided were questioned by the police, and had computer equipment confiscated. It is unclear at this point what their fate is, but there is a distinct possibility might face charges." And in the U.S., an anonymous reader writes "The Recording Industry Association of America strikes again with yet another round of lawsuits. Jon Newston over at P2Pnet.net doesn't hold back anything in his great commentary on it today. Best quote 'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'"

The RIAA doesn't usually go after movie swappers. RIAA=music, MPAA=movies.

I say someone frames Osama (IP/DNS spoof) and uses P2P to share a boatload of music and movies on a Linux server, so that the RIAA, MPAA, and SCO all go after him. He won't last 12 hours before getting royally pwned by 3 predatory legal teams!

Iceland might consider becoming the world's library since the other aspects of their financials are changing. The fishing is not as good as it used to be and trans-Atlantic airplanes don't need refueling stops anymore.

So why not just become the center of world trading in 'copyrighted' materials and take a microcharge of each trade? They'll get kicked out of the EU? Hardly likely. Brussells can be really boring on a small Eurocrat's salary and full-price media product can be mighty expensive (and will definitely be going up in price).

Better Iceland become the world's library than Vanuatuu, because that little island could just disappear in a typhoon and take all the servers and storage with it.

Maybe, you say, no one should be the world's center of 'illegal' trade in 'copyrighted' materials. Nonsense, that is a spin fantasy of the media giants who need inexpensive unofficial downloads as much as they need full-service 'all-fees-paid' fully-legit product sales.

When five companies control most of the world's media, it doesn't really matter if people buy the product at full copyright-paid Western prices or discounted 'pirate' prices. Either way they get all the money eventually because they are the only game in town. It's more important that people consume ever-increasing amounts of corporate media product. The money will get back to them. That isn't the case when there are thousands of small and medium-sized media companies globally. However that situation no longer exists and the media executives should revise their overall concept of how this new global framework works.

In a sense the reference in the parent to secret underground terrorist religious organizations is apt because these groups are the primary competition to the global media companies, especially in the developing world where 2/3rds of the population is under the age of 25. Hollywood and religious fanaticism don't mix all that well in the long term. Both compete for the leisure time attention span (and the loyalities) of the billions of new young people. In America, corporate Hollywood won because in the current political alliance between the major corporations and the religious right the religious community has always been the weaker partner.

"The fishing is not as good as it used to be"Iceland is not a member of the EU and doesn't have to folow it's utterly stupid fishing policy (wich is the biggest reason why Iceland is not a member) so the fishing is as good as it has been for years and it will be in the future.

"trans-Atlantic airplanes don't need refueling stops anymore."The Icelandic Civil Avation Control Area has grait traffic. Also, Icelandair uses the Keflavik Int Airport (KEF) as a hub for their trans-atlantic flights (http://www.icelandair.is/routemap/index.html).T he ammount of passangers traveling trough KEF rose up to 17% of what is was las year.

"They'll get kicked out of the EU?"How can Iceland be kicked out if they are not even going to be members in the near future?

"Better Iceland become the world's library than Vanuatuu, because that little island could just disappear in a typhoon and take all the servers and storage with it."Server storage? And where is the bandwith?FARICE, the newest one of the two fiber-optic cables connecting Iceland to the rest of the world has the maximum bandwith of 720Gb/s and CANTAT-3 has the maximum bandwidth of 2,5Gb/s.Is that enough for the whole world?

"When five companies control most of the world's media[...]"There is actually a world outside the USA. Have you noticed it?

Since it's not the politically correct point to make at/., this wasn't mentioned in michael's writeup [although it was hinted at]:

Iceland's net traffic plummets, following P2P raids

Police in Iceland raided the homes of 12 people and confiscated computer equipment and CDs this week as the global war on file sharing reached the volcanic homeland of elves and trolls. Police targeted individuals using the popular DC++ [sourceforge.net] file sharing application to share movie files. One suspect was found with approximately 2.5TB of allegedly illicit material.

Within hours of the raids, net traffic in Iceland fell 40 per cent, according to SMAIS (Iceland's association of film right holders), which filed the complaints which prompted police action. Its take on the raids (in Icelandic, unfortunately) can be found here [smais.is].

So 12 file-sharers were accounting for 40% of all internet traffic for an entire nation.

That's a heckuva lotta file sharing.

And within that 2.5TB of data, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some pirated software [MSDN Universal, Autocad, Acrobat/Photoshop] that might interest the BSA [or whatever they call it in Iceland].

what do you suppose the of the people on p2p did after they heard 12 people had been raided? stay online? hang around online with files on share?

(however.. this will in the long run once again achieve nothing.. they will just move into using some system where it's harder to make any proof who shared what, some waste/freenet like system probaly maybe with saturation enabled)

"So 12 file-sharers were accounting for 40% of all internet traffic for an entire nation."
That's not true. In wake of the news of the arrest, almost everyone on DC stopped downloading / uploading out of fear for being arrested next.
The Icelandic police sais this is just the beginning and this will be the largest legal case of it's type in the world.

"net traffic in Iceland fell 40 per cent, according to SMAIS (Iceland's association of film right holders)"

I put about as much stock in that statistic as I do in Microsoft-sponsored comparisons between Windows and Linux. In other words, the number might conceivably be accurate, but we can't count on it, because the source has a (huge) conflict of interest.

No, he means that they're helpless to pay lawyers thousands of dollars to defend them whether they are guilty or not. Even if they have done nothing wrong, it is cheaper to just settle than pay to fight it.

But what if they *have* done something wrong? Copyright infringement is a crime. Downloading copyrighted material that you have not purchased is a crime. If you are commiting a crime, they *should* go after you.

I *hate* the RIAA as much as the next guy. But this *IS* the way that the RIAA *should* combat illegal file sharing. You don't go after the phone company to stop bomb threats. You *do* go after those calling in the bomb threat. How is this any different?

My whole point is that the law is wrong. You're comparing bombers to uploaders (albeit indirectly) and creating the same connexion in people's minds as the media does between Arabs and terrorists. A more appropriate comparison would be "you don't sue the city who paves roads when somebody jaywalks, you go after the jaywalker."

Why the hell should uploading or downloading stuff that you don't own be legal?

Do try to remember that IP is artificial, not real, property. IP only has the rights that we, the people, feel like granting it, within the defining clause of the U.S. Constitution that deals with patents and copyrights.

If we decide that music can no longer be copyrighted, then that's the law - period. With one stroke of a pen IP can be unmade just as it was made. You can't do the same thing with real property.

Copyright infringement is a crime and, on a large scale, a felony. See 17 U.S.C. 506:

Willful copyright infringement is criminalized by 17 U.S.C. 506(a)
in concert with 18 U.S.C. 2319 for economically motivated infringement or
large-scale infringement (even if not committed for commercial gain). Felony
penalties attach to violations involving reproduction or distribution of at least
ten copies valued at more than $2,500.

As Larry Lessig points out in his most recent book [free-culture.org], this turns an enormous number of otherwise law-abiding Americans--some 40 percent--into felons. Moreover, it exposes them to literally millions of dollars of civil damages.

The tragedy of this is not only that these penalties are overly harsh, not commensurate with the crime, and burden millions of users for the benefit of a relatively small industry.

The tragedy is that it is a grotesque distortion of the once highly limited copyright law, a law that was only meant to regulate publishers. The incessant lobbying of spineless representatives has caused the scope and penalties of 'infringement' to balloon, without deliberation and without consulting the public.

Just as importantly, it is the industry's public relation's 'propaganda' (as Chomsky would call it) that has effectively morphed public opinion about what copyright was, what it is, and what it should be. It has changed from merely affecting publishers to affecting everyone, and it seems to many 'natural' and 'obvious' that individual users are committing willful and egregious crimes. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the parent post accepting the sad truth--"Downloading copyrighted material that you have not purchased is a crime."--wholeheartedly.

Information would be a pure public good then. Like paying for national defense, you couldn't privately deliver such a good since people could enjoy national defense by allowing their neighbours to pay for the army. Everyone could similarily mooch though, thus a pure public good is necessarily provided for by government.

It is possible, if people do not want to create content although I see open source software alive and well without such incentives, government too can provide incentives, as they do with other pure public goods mentioned.

How would such a system work? Who knows, although it is rapidly looking better in comparison to the alternative DRM future, police state and tech phobic RIAA corporations' view.

If I understand you correctly, you're advocating socializing the entertainment and software industries, two industries which hold lots of IP.

Naturally, many folks would like to see somebody else's career socialized while they continue to pursue filthy lucre on their own. A good test for anybody advocating that somebody else's revenue stream become socialized is to ask oneself if one would be happy if one's own industry went that way. Would you be satisfied with your income being converted to a fixed gov

Expect production (you know - making a real physical product, like a house or a car), services (haircuts, car service, etc.), and entertainment (I don't have a 20-meter wide movie screen in my home, do you ?).

In fact, the only really affected worldy pursuits would be entertainment industries and software providers.

I'm not saying that abolishing copyrights completely would neccessarily be a good idea, just that it wouldn't be the end of civilization.

Why write software?

Because either you need it, or someone else needs it enough to pay you for it, or you think you can make money selling services related to the product. Or because you want fame and recognition.

Why write a book?

For fame ? For the ego stroke of admiring feedback ? For the sense of accomplishment ?

I've only written short stories, and only about a dozen of them. I did it because I wanted to contribute something to the online community I was a part of back then, and for the ego stroke of getting feedback. No, I'm not providing a link to them, because I plan on rewriting them.

Considering the amount of text one can find online, I'd imagine these to be a powerfull enough motivating force to keep the culture going...

Of course, most of the online writings are terrible in quality, but that isn't really different from published texts, now is it ?-) Besides, I feel a new business idea forming - a recommendation service, where real human beings shift through the endless sea of online content and provide links to the true gems for their subscribers.

Why create music?

Same as above, plus as a commercial about your skills, in the hopes of getting a patron/concert.

Also, see Elfwood [elfwood.com], an amateur fantasy- and sci-fi art gallery with written works too. Quite a lot of the more talented artists there imply that they might not be completely averse to taking commission work. Of course, the art there is copyrighted and can't be distributed without the artists permission, but it is free for anyone to view.

For the love of the endeavour? Sure. But what percentage of people would be willing to invest hard money in such a pursuit?

One of the neat things about computers and the Internet is that they reduce the need to invest money in such endeavours. To publish online, all you need to invest is time, tears and sweat - but your wallet is safe.

Why would a publisher give an author an advance?

Why would you need a publisher, if you can just upload the fruits of your labor to your website ?

Why do you think the publishers are so scared about p2p, anyway ? Hint: it's not the artists they fear for.

Why would a record label front the production cost of an album? For a profit on the manufacturing process?

There seems to be quite a lot of legal music available online. So, presumably, you can get get music produced even without record companies. I'm not an expert at music production, thought, and can't claim to know what steps are required to produce it, exactly speaking. Perhaps someone else can comment on this ?

Personally, I would be *estatic* with 14 years. Or 14 years with a renewal for another 14 years. 28 years of exclusive control. If you write something at age 20, you have until you're 48 to produce something new. That's not so bad, is it?

Personally, I'd think that the creators life + 10 years (to keep people from being assassinated for their music or whatever) with only real human beings being counte

I wouldn't argue with that (apart from, as pointed out above, criminal vs civil charges).

But, I would argue with the scale of the fines imposed. Copyright infringement is simply not a very damaging thing to do. The amount the industry loses is guaranteed to be less than the cover price of the media, because a) it may not have been bought anyway, and b) they get free advertising.

People don't tend to break laws in large numbers unless they believe that there's something wrong with those laws to begin with. In any representative system the people have the final say on what laws should and should not exist; when representation breaks down you get a noticeable disparity between law and compliance, as we're seeing with copyright.

This doesn't mean that these people think the concept of copyright is flawed, just that its implementation leaves something to be desired. Hence record numbe

The "If you aren't guilty you have nothing to worry about!" attitude. Please, that is just stupid. The problem with civil suits is that the bar for bringing them is much lower, as is the standard of proof.

The RIAA doesn't really need to do anything but file to have a lawsuit against you, they don't have to meet any real burden. In a criminal trial, the prosecution has to have a minimum level of evidence, or the case will just be thrown out. Likewise the burden in a criminal trial is beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning they have to have pretty convincing proof you are guilty. In a civil trial it's a perponderance of the evidence, meaning they have to argue a little better than you.

Now all this was intentional. Criminal trials are intended to be for, well, crimes, things that society wants to punish you for. They also can carry very stiff penalities. Civil trials are for resolving financial disputes. If a tennant skips out without paying you, you take them to civil court to try and get your money.

The thing is, with copyright infringement, the amount they are allowed to ask for is so outrageous, it might as well eb jail time. They can sue for $150,000 PER INCIDENT which means for EACH file. Now you cannot honestly believe that someone having a signle MP3 on their harddrive costs the RIAA $150,000 (if you do then realise you are saying they should be worth several times the current gross world product). The fine is clearly excessive, which is prohibited by the constution.

So you get sued. Even if you are innocent, you basically have to settle. Hiring a defense isn't cheap (and you don't get one by default like in a criminal case). You also need a GOOD defense since they don't have to prove you shared the files beyond a reasonable doubt, just argue that you did a little better than you argue you didn't. Then, if you lose, well they basically own everythign you make for the rest of your life since we are talking of millions of dollars per CD.

THAT is the problem. If the RIAA was suing people for the price of the CDs they are sharing, I'd have no problem. I've got no problem with them saying "Oh you have 20 CDs worth of music you didn't purchase? Fine, we want $350." I wouldn't even have a problem if they sued for say, twice the amount. YOu are allowed to have some punitive damamges in there. However the statutory damages on the books are so excessive that it's literally a matter of your entire finincal future, just for a few songs. You are forced to settle, innocent or not.

What's more, UNC did a study, the link I'll post from home later if you like that showed that filesharing has a stasticaly insignificant impact on music sales. So you are talking extreme punishments for something that appears to be of very little harm.

It's like speeding enforcement. It's a minor offence, so it's a minor punishment. A reasonable fine, and some points on your license. We could reduce speeding to almost nothing by giving police M2s and having them destory any vehicle and kill any driver going over the speed limit, but that seems rather excessive and unfair. The same is true of having a hundred thousand dollar fine on copying music when it seems to have no impact on sales anyhow.

Yeah, and paying $15 for the dvd (audio and full motion video) of the movie, complete with english, french, and spanish subtitles, widescreen and normal formats, and usually 2 hours of director commentary as opposed to paying $15 for one hour of audio makes any kind of sense.

You can't compare live media with recorded media. Compare apples with apples and you have yourself a valid comparasion.

"Boy, that Jaguar is overpriced: it's a few hundred dollars of steel, glass and leather. Therefore, I can steal it."

It's called 'copyright infrindgement' and not theft for an important reason, they are different. Physical property is different than ideas and information. You do realize that you are not deprived of your ideas when someone else thinks them, right?

"Don't give me that "copyright-infringement-is-not-stealing-because-I- don't-deprive-you-from-using-it." Do you scream when companies use GPL code without releasing the source? How is this different?"

Do I scream? Who are you talking to, I think you'll find a wide audience here at Slashdot. As for companies bullying individuals, you'll find people fighting against them by what ever means at their disposal including flinging called copyright laws in their face.

"Let's make a deal: Microsoft can close the Linux source and you can copy all the music you want."

Lets make a better deal, abolish copyright and then the GPL and all other licenses won't be necessary. I like that better, lets go for it all it takes is a simple majority vote to repeal the copyright bill and we are there.

You are comparing fat cat CEO's lining their pockets by denying the masses the right to information with the plight of minorities? I think that a disingenuous line of reasoning.

No, I'm comparing the masses freeloading off the hard work of others (musicians, artists, software engineers, writers) by stealing their work and then trying to legitimize it by saying that information should be free with that of minorities who were treated as slaves.

You are comparing fat cat CEO's lining their pockets by denying the masses the right to information with the plight of minorities? I think that a disingenuous line of reasoning.

"You have no right to other people's IP"

You may obtain a property right in that IP if you agree to the asked-for price. If you do not pay the asked-for price, you are misappropriating someone's property. Again, for the love of God, get it through your head, you have no right to someone's IP.

And as a supreme irony, although RIAA - the enforcement organ that's responsible for bringing so much misery to so many American people - is short for Recording Industry Association of America, only one of its owners - Warner Music - can be said to have an American base.

The majority owners are EMI Group (UK), Bertelsmann AG (Germany), Sony Corp (Japan). and Universal Music Group (Vivendi Universal, France).

Yes, the traffic really did drop that much (I live in Iceland). It was very noticable on publicly accessible usage graphs for the largest peering point in Iceland. This graph [isnic.is] from the Reykjavík Internet Exchange [www.rix.is] is very telling.

However, the Register article was slightly misleading in implying that the traffic reduction was directly caused by the raid - it was more likely caused by the media coverage of the raid.

Basically, Joe Sixpacks all over the country read about the raids in their morning papers, paniced and turned off all their P2P apps. This includes the managers of the other DC++ hubs.

The police promised about 50 to 70GB of new material to get on the hub, got the ip address of the biggest sharer there and started monitering his traffic, this has been going on since february when SMAIS opend the case on the operators of the hub. With in housr all traffic with all public and most private hubs in iceland stopped and people were wiping or moving their harddisks, total traffic was reduced 40% and has been for the last few days here are some graphs for internet traffic in iceland, (in icelandi

When the RIAA went after P2P software we all screamed "don't attack software that has legitimate uses, go after the people actually breaking the law." Now that they're doing just that everyone's still pitching a fit.

Its not that they are going after the people breaking the law, it is that the RIAA is suing people who have not dont anything wrong, and those people cant even defend themselves! There have been numerous cases where people who down even own computers have been sued. Not to mention all the suits against people who have free software.
Suing people who have committed the crimes are fine, but their tactics are dead wrong.

This is a flaw in the justice system then, and not an indication that the RIAA should stop trying to sue. If you think that it costs too much money to defend yourself in the judicial system (which I wouldn't disagree with...), that's great -- but don't confuse the two issues. By the way, where are the "numerous" cases of people who don't even own computers being sued found at? I was under the impression that they were tracking all of this with IP information, and ISP cooperation...

Show me these cases, no please do. Supply a list. Of the cases highlighted by the media and slashdot, one was a grandmother who was using a mac, claiming she couldnt have done it because theres no mac clients for the network she was using (a blatant false statement, as soon as I read that a quick google search found a number of clients for that network), and a 12 year old girl, who had been duped into paying to access 'premium material' (IE shared material that had been checked and verified by certain per

The first three links are:
1 - News on an RIAA lawsuit versus a man without a computer
2 - News on an RIAA suit against a woman without a computer
3 - News on an RIAA suit against a couple without a computer

When people litter, I want them punsihed. I do not like them breaking the law. However I want them fined a reasonable amount, I don't want them killed, locked in jail for the rest of their life, or fined millions of dollars. Why? Littering is a minor offence, it causes harm, but not much. Thus the punsihmentshould likewise be minor. It's not only a basic concept of fairness but it is condified as law in the constution (ammendment 8).

Well the thing is, the RIAA is abusing the probably unconsutionaly high stautory damages allowd for copyright infringement. Here we again have something that causes little harm, a UNC study showed no stasticaly significant effect of file sharing on music sales, we should have a reasonable fine. I'm fine with 2x the price of a CD in fine. You have 50 CDs you didn't pay for, you get nailed to the tune of $700-$1,000. Seems fair and reasonable, and also a workable deterrant.

However because of the high statutury damages allowed (up to $150,000 per song) people are faced with getting sued for millions or even billions of dollars. This amount is totally unreasonable, and so scary that even if you are innocent, you are going to settle simply because you can't afford to loose (and civil trials aren't to beyond a reasonable doubt, just a perponderance of the evidence).

So look, if the RIAA starts suing people for a reasonable amount, I'll back off any objections. So long as they sue for multiple millions of dollars, I will maintain that they are abusing the legal system.

The problem is that the RIAA is going around like this, seemingly at random.

RIAA (To Random User): We have proof you were sharing 50,000 songs on Kazaa. We're going to sue you for $150,000 per song. Keep in mind that we have millions of dollars to spend on lawyers should you choose to defend yourself.

Granny: What? I don't even know what Kazaa is! Let me call a lawyer.

Lawyer: You want to fight the RIAA? Well, you'd probably win, but my legal fees may range into the tens of thousands of dollars. That is, if the RIAA doesn't appeal or stall in court. Then it could cost more.

RIAA: It seems you are denying your crimes. Very well, we're feeling charitable today. If you fess up, we'll settle for $2,000. We're letting you off easy.

Granny: Defending myself with cost me at least ten grand. I should take the RIAA's deal, even though I haven't done anything.

The music industry is well aware of how easy it is to copy, rip, and share CDs. There is no secret here. Adapt or face the consequences. There is nothing realistic about trying to legislate from the high chair or toddler training toilet of business infantilism. They are well aware of the consequences--adapt and deal with it.

Give a person a cookie jar with a thousand cookies, let them keep the cookie jar forever, tell them to take only one

Icelanders deliberately don't use such networks, because most local ISPs charge seperately for international downloads (we have somewhat limited bandwidth to the rest of the world due to a lack of competition and resources).

Downloads which are local to Iceland are "free" (included in the lease of the ADSL line), but international downloads are rather expensive.

This is exactly why DC++, with it's centralized hub-based architecture was so popular in Iceland. Anybody who understood both technology and copyright law knew better than to connect to them though, for exactly the same reasons.

The RIAA just doesn't get it. Continuing with these lawsuits is not going to do anything but build another revenue stream for them. At this point, one has to wonder if they realize that and if that is all they are hoping for.

You see, the market has already spoken and it has spoken loudly. An entirely new paradigm of music distribution has evolved and it isn't going to regress to the way it was in the previous generation. The RIAA had their chance to give people a product they want online and to use the new mechanism of distribution for profit. It failed to do so, thus other non-sanctioned methods entered the space to fill the void.

What will happen now is one of two things. Either the RIAA realizes that they can't have it their way and comes up with an acceptable online offer that will attract customers, or they will continue to spin their wheels in vain and alienate their customers who will in turn seek other outlets from which to obtain music.

1. Sue tons of people.2. People bitch to politicians.3. Politicians pass another copyright adjustment law that 'protects' consumers while improving the recording industry's profit margin.4. Profit!

It's that simple. They have no fear of boycott or consumer retribution. Consumers of music are sheep. Even if some of the sheep wise up and stop buying, there are more people growing up to take their place, which is probably as good an explanation as any for why the music industry targets youth.

Even if some of the sheep wise up and stop buying, there are more people growing up to take their place, which is probably as good an explanation as any for why the music industry targets youth.

Except those youth are growing up in an environment where they've probably downloaded the music they listen to more than bought it. They're not likely to suddenly change and go to buying only. In fact they're more likely to stop buying music at all. Lawsuits aren't likely to faze the younger generation, espec

Back when the RIAA was focused on Napster and P2P, didn't we say they shouldn't be focusing on the technology, but on those who misuse it?

Now they're doing just that - focusing on the people, not the technology. Their methods could be a lot better (they should focus on people who share a lot, not anyone with an MP3 with a suspicious name), but they *are* on the right track.

...the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.

This is precisely the right thing for the labels to do. Go after the people who are breaking the law, not the people who make products that can be used to break the law. It is good because it is the way law should be (punishing the infringer, not the toolmaker), and it is good because it shows people how much the current copyright model sucks. Actions like this are exactly what we want, so that people will be motivated to move to new economic models of content distribution.

We need to find an economic model that both compensates the creator and moves the product into the public domain (or a similar Open license). Actions like this are exactly what will show the general public the value of the public domain.

From a moral point of view: people who distribute copyrighted material are violating both the letter and spirit of the law, and deserve to be punished.

From a strategic point of view: The only alternative to punishing copyright violators, short of abandoning copyright altogether, is to make violation impossible through Orwellian DRM backed up by even more Orwellian legislation, or by hamstringing the Internet in some other way. I don't want to lose my freedom and my technology because some punks thought they should be allowed to download music without paying for it.

Assuming its the latest MP3s. I have been known to trade things that are difficult to find, or so out of date that it's no longer sellable. For example, apple II software. Morally, I'm certainly not violating the spirit of the law, and it's arguable even about the letter of the law. The oldest a2 software will be 28 years old very soon, at which point it would have expired had corporations not bribed congress for extensions. I collect vintage computers, and some are inoperable because it's impossible to fin

"The German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him and he will be eaten to the bone."

So it is with the *AA. Eventually they will fail out of the sheer weight of numbers they are fighting.

The problem is finding enough ants willing to be killed. The Russians didn't have that problem because they had no choice in the matter. Personally, I'd rather not d/l music if it means being sued for thousands.

he German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him and he will be eaten to the bone.

Did anyone else have flashbacks to Peter Jackson's Battle of Pelenor Fields when they read that?

'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'

I hate to side with the RIAA here, but don't you remember all the p2p networks screaming in court, "You can't blame us, we don't put pirate music on the internet, our users do!" Apparently the RIAA got the message.

If this were about the SCO lawsuits we'd all be crying for the distros and hardware vendors to indemnify us. I guess it's a little too late to ask Kazaa to take the blame for us.

Why are we sticking up for people who make copyrighted Hollywood movies available for download? The one and only defense of P2P networks is that they are not "pirate to pirate" networks but rather a new tool for distributing independent, privately financed media and breaking the Hollywood deathgrip on media distribution. For years we've screamed that attacking the toolmakers (DMCA) is insane, that the tool abusers are to blame. And now, when the RIAA finally listens to Slashdot and sues the pirates themselves we're still against them?

It's articles like this that convince lawmakers, businessmen, and the Silent Majority that all this crowd is actually interested in is stealing movies. Right now I'd be hard pressed to argue with them.

The one and only defense of P2P networks is that they are not "pirate to pirate" networks but rather a new tool for distributing independent, privately financed media and breaking the Hollywood deathgrip on media distribution.

The one and only defense?

I thought it was that we are free people who are innocent until proven guilty, and should be free to connect our computers together without having to prove that we have a "legitimate" reason first. But that's just me...

(1) Because when the RIAA goes after lawbreakers, it doesn't actually go after lawbreakers but rather goes after all sorts of people, some of whom are breaking the law and some of whom aren't. The problem is that almost *everyone* it goes after, regardless of the activity they were engaging in, has to settle because they cannot afford the costs of defense. If the RIAA actually went against file sharers who were sharing music of the artists they represent, where those artists said they want people who distri

This is pretty funny, as stated in the news report domestic bandwidth for the entire country dropped about 40%. This can be seen as clear as day from the usage stats for RIX (Reykjavik Internet Exchange) a centralized point for traffic between Icelandic ISPs.
Check out the second and third from top here [isnic.is]

...this is exactly what we asked for, and it's the right way to do it. For years advocates of P2P have said that copyright holders (which, regrettably, includes corporate entities) should be pursuing the individual violators rather than trying to kill P2P software or force ISPs to block their use.

The corporations may be a bit severe in their approach, and IMO the RIAA's tactic of fining offenders through a pre-court settlement is something of a miscarriage of justice. But when press releases tell us about

Best quote 'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'"

How about this instead:

"It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on the actual men women who are breaking the law and causing the problems on the first place"

Sharing music does none of these things. It's similar to the argument of losing data when Windows crashes--there's no liability because there's no real harm. But we, the consumers, don't get the privelege of an EULA at the point of

"Best quote 'It's almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can't hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.'"

At the risk of being modded troll, what is wrong with cracking down on people who are:

DC++ hubs were started in Iceland because we usually have to pay extra for foreign downloads so people started sharing stuff between them for free.When they raided the 12 guys (and seized 11 terabytes of data) all the dc servers were shut down and immediatly MRTG graphs clearly showed about a 50-60% traffic between domestic connections.We have long heen proud to say that we have very high percentage of net users here, about 95% (number pulled out of ass) of the country has the internet and DC isn't the only way Icelanders share copyrighted stuff.In fact most people just get cd's from friends who download from DC or someother p2p sharing app.

So in our case most of the population is rampantly breaking copyright laws all the time and suddenly because of complaints from SMAIS 12 random guys are arrested and two of them held for 24 hours.2 years in prison is the maximum punishment for a crime like this while murder is maximum 16 years and if anyone is convicted for a copyright violation in Iceland we are going to have to put the entire nation behind bars.

I'm personally disgusted that our government is even thinking about putting profits of american companies above the well being of the people it is supposed to serve.

Oh come on. In this day and age if you share copyrighted goods online and have no clue that it is illegal then you are helpless because of a mental disability, not your financial state. While I have some sympathy for those who get caught, I just have to say you brought this on yourselves.

Until the law is changed, you know what you are up against if you share files you have no right to. We can disagree with what the RIAA is doing all day, and I certainly don't think that sharing a few songs is worth $5000 i

Nor has it ever been demonstrated that one download equals one lost sale.

One way to test a thesis is to view the result if it were true.

The record industry wishes us to believe that every download is a lost sale. If true, what would their sales be if all downloads had never happened? Does this figure sound reasonable? Or does it exceed the total GNP of the G-7 nations, plus Nigeria?

I, for one, do not believe for a moment that Internet music sharing has kept the music industry from suddenly expanding several times in size. And since they can't tell the truth about this, I don't believe them about much else either. Do you?

Then again, I don't believe memos allegedly typed in 1971 clearly using Microsoft Word are authentic either. But if they are, then I'm using them as prior art to invalidate all patents relating to Microsoft Office!

This biased story line read like an excerpt from Les Miserables or Oliver Twist. If I don't like the 35 MPH speed limit on the road leading to my home I can't commute 70 MPH every day and not expect repercussions. If you don't like a law why not attack it legislatively? Make a grassroots effort to overturn the law. But don't knowingly break the law and expect to get any sympathy from me.

The "War on Drugs" analogy isn't really applicable. P2P participants are the drug suppliers as well as the drug users. If you rip a new CD you just bought so others can download the files for their own use then you are a pusher that is a valid target, right?